Forgetting Me.

When I look into the mirror these days, I see You.

I squint into the glass- or You do, rather- trying to picture what I should’ve been.

I can will myself into existence, I know I can, if only I know what to will.

Stupid, stupid, how could you forget?

A hand comes into the frame and touches the tip of my face, or your face, should I say?

I stop to contemplate this.

The face does not belong to Me, no. I am merely wearing it, on lease. Your face, then.

This hand, it smoothes over your skin- the skin that I wear, but is in reality yours- a quick check up for the vitals, a certain curiosity. A pulsing heart, a functioning brain, mobile limbs. All there. No immediate danger.

And here’s a viable explanation for this: for now, I have simply become You.

Who ‘You’ are, I don’t know, but I am certain of the ‘for now’.

It's a comforting thought, this assurance of evanescence:

For now, I am You.

Later, I will be somebody else or hopefully, Me.

Me, me, I say, but who is Me?

Think, you idiot, think, it's right there.

And then, I feel it. Something riding in from the periphery; storming in, a picture, a song, a memory of a memory.

I feel it like a tide on turbulent waters: a tiny roll far, far away, but bringing with it a promise of devastation.

Closer, closer, then a scream, louder, louder, louder. A nail scraping a chalkboard- riiiiip. I can’t bear it, I need it to go, I just can’t.

Pull, uproot, close your eyes, shove it out.

I blink, then silence. The tide is gone.

Out of sight, out of mind.

There, all good.

Now, where was I?